1. IMF/World Bank structural adjestment programs (SAPs) have increased poverty around the world. Structural adjustment--the standard IMF/World Bank policy package which calls for slashing government spending, privatization, and opening up countries to exploitative foreign unvestment, among other measures--has deepened poverty around the world. In the two regions with the most structural adjustment experience, per capita income has stagnated (Latin America) or plummeted (Africa). Structural adjustmebt has also contributed to rising income and wealth inequality in the developing world.

2. IMF/World Bank "debt relief" for poor and indebted countries is a sham. Many poor countries must devote huge portions of their national budgets to paying back foreign creditors--often for loans that were made to or for dictators, wasteful military spending or boondoggle projects. The money used to pay back debt subtracts from essential expenditures on health, education, infrastructure and other important needs. The IMF/World Bank plan to relieve poor countries' debt burden will leave most poor countries paying nearly as much as thy currently do. All all of the debt relief is conditioned on countries undergoing years of closely monitored structural adjustment.

3. The IMF has helped foster a severe depression in Russia. Russia in the 1990s has witnessed a peacetime economic contraction of unprecedented scale--with the number of Russians in poverty rising from 2 million to 60 million since the IMF came to post-Communist Russia. The IMF's "shock therapy"--sudden and intense structural adjustment--helping bring about this disaster. "In retrospect, it's hard to see what could have been done wrong that wasn't," says Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

5. The IMF bails out big banks. The IMF bailouts in Asia, like those in Russia and Mexico, directed money to those countries largely for the purpose of paying off loans to foreign banks. Thanks to the IMF, the banks escaped significant losses for imprudent lending decisions. Citigroup, Chase Manhattan, and J.P. Morgan were among the beneficiaries of the "Korean" bailout.

6. IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programs devastate the environment. Structural adjustment demands an increase in exports and foreign exchange earnings. As a result, explains Friends of the Earth, "countries often over-exploit their resources through unsustainable forestry, mining and agricultural practices that generate pollution and environmental destruction."

8. IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programs harm women. Cuts in budget spending, mandated by structural adjustment programs, leave women to pick up the pieces--with government services eliminated, women are forced to provided informal social supports for the sick and disabled. The IMF/World Bank emphasis on exports has pushed women farmers to switch from growing food for family consumption to crops for exports--and left them poorer in the process. The high interest rates associated with structural adjustment have made credit less accessible, undermining the viability of small women-owned business.

9. IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programs and Bank project loans have led to deforestation worldwide. The export orientation demanded by structural adjustment policies has led to more forest cutting. And World Bank forest sector loans to countries around the world have done nothing to improve the situation. "Although the [1991 Bank Forest] policy and dual objectives of conservation of tropical moist forests and tree planting to meet the basic needs of the poor, Bank influence on containing rates of deforestation of tropical moist forests has been neglible in the twenty countries with the most threatened tropical moist forests." Who said that? The World Bank's own Operations Evaluation Department, in November 1999!

11. The World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) provides corporate welfare for environmentally destructive projects. The IFC finances and provides advice for private sector ventures and projects in developing countries in partnership with private investors. Among its private sector partners: ExxonMobil, BP, Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark and Marriott. There's no reason for a public development institution, supposedly working to fight poverty, to lend its support to these well-endowed transnationals. Making matters worse, many of the private sector projects supported by the IFC, especially in the oil and gas sector, are environmentally destructive.

12. April 16 is a chance to make history. While massive protests against IMF and World Bank policies are commonplace in the developing world--from Jordan to Indonesia, Venezuela to Zambia--the IMF and World Bank are not accountable to populations in those countries. In contrast, there has never been a demonstration of more than a few hundred people to challenge IMF and Bank policy in the United States--the largest and most influential shareholder in the institutions. That's going to change on April 16. The thouands of people who will attend the April 16 protests will forever change the political context of debates on IMF and the World Bank's brutal policies with no recourse.